At the court of the czar was an old man named Sotof, a drunkard of inimitable powers of imbibition, and long a butt for the jests of the court. He had taught the czar to write, a service which he deemed worthy of being rewarded by the highest dignities of the empire.
Peter, who dearly loved a practical joke, learning the aspirations of the old sot, promised to confer on him the most eminent office in the world, and accordingly appointed him Kniaz Papa that is, prince-pope, with a salary of two thousand roubles and a palace at St. Petersburg. The exaltation of Sotof to this dignity was solemnized by a performance more gross than ludicrous. Buffoons were chosen to lift the new dignitary to his throne, and four fellows who stammered with every word delivered absurd addresses upon his exaltation. The mock pope then created a number of cardinals, at whose head he rode through the streets in procession, his seat of state being a cask of brandy which was carried on a sledge drawn by four oxen.
The cardinals followed, and after them came sledges laden with food and drink, while the music of the procession consisted of a hideous turmoil of drums, trumpets, horns, fiddles, and hautboys, all playing out of time, mingled with the ear-splitting clatter of pots and pans vigorously beaten by a troop of cooks and scullions. Next came a number of men dressed as Roman Catholic monks, each carrying a bottle and a glass. In the rear of the procession marched the czar and his courtiers, Peter dressed as a Dutch skipper, the others wearing various comic disguises.
The place fixed for the conclave being reached, the cardinals were led into a long gallery, along which had been built a range of closets. In each of these a cardinal was shut up, abundantly provided with food and drink. To each of the cardinals two conclavists were attached, whose duty it was to ply them with brandy, carry insulting messages from one to another, and induce them, as they grew tipsy, to bawl out all sorts of abuse of one another. To all this ribaldry the czar listened with delight, taking note at the same time of anything said of which he might make future use against the participants.
This orgy lasted three days and three nights, the cardinals not being released until they had agreed upon answers to a number of ridiculous questions propounded to them by the Kniaz Papa. Then the doors were flung open, and the pope and his cardinals were drawn home at mid-day dead drunk on sledges,—that is, such of them as survived, for some had actually drunk themselves to death, while others never recovered from the effect of their debauch.
This offensive absurdity appealed so strongly to the czar's idea of humor that he had it three times repeated, it growing more gross and shameless on each successive occasion; and during the last conclave Peter indulged in such excesses that his death was hastened by their effects.
As for the national church of Russia, Peter treated it with contemptuous indifference. The office of patriarch becoming vacant, he left it unfilled for twenty-one years, and finally, on being implored by a delegation from the clergy to appoint a patriarch, he started up in a furious passion, struck his breast with his fist and the table with his cutlass, and roared out, "Here, here is your patriarch!" He then stamped angrily from the room, leaving the prelates in a state of utter dismay.
Soon after he took occasion to make the church the subject of a second coarse jest. Another buffoon of the court, Buturlin by name, was appointed Kniaz Papa, and a marriage arranged between him and the widow of Sotof, his predecessor. The bridegroom was eighty-four years of age, the bride nearly as old. Some decrepit old men were chosen to play the part of bridesmaids, four stutterers invited the wedding guests, while four of the most corpulent fellows who could be found attended the procession as running footmen. A sledge drawn by bears held the orchestra, their music being accompanied with roars from the animals, which were goaded with iron spikes. The nuptial benediction was given in the cathedral by a blind and deaf priest, who wore huge spectacles. The marriage, the wedding feast, and the remaining ceremonies were all conducted in the same spirit of broad burlesque, in which one of the sacred ceremonies of the Russian Church was grossly paraphrased.
Peter did not confine himself to coarse jests in his efforts to discredit the clergy. He took every occasion to unmask the trickery of the priests. Petersburg, the new city he was building, was an object of abhorrence to these superstitious worthies, who denounced it as one of the gates of hell, prophesying that it would be overthrown by the wrath of heaven, and fixing the date on which this was to occur. So great was the fear inspired by their prophecies that work was suspended in spite of the orders of the terrible czar.